Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

This and That, Then and Now

The new Washington State big cheese in charge of agriculture is encouraging our orchardists to get into the Chinese market. The people over there really want to buy our apples, cherries and other fruit. Above mentioned Big Cheese pointed out that fruit from Washington which is sold illegally in China fetches an 80% premium over locally grown fruit. “Get in there and sell apples!” to paraphrase the agriculture chief.

If I was a eastside apple farmer, I would think long and hard before I spent any real money on the Chinese market. I would look to the shellfish industry up-and-down the west coast. That is because the Chinese have forbidden any West Coast shellfish from entering their market (they were buying tens of thousands of pounds of shellfish every month). The Chinese claim to have found two samples of shellfish with toxins. This is the same government/economy which was sending us baby bibs and toys with lead in the paint. These are the guys who sent drywall here that was so contaminated it corroded electrical wires. And suddenly, they find toxins in shellfish which had none when we sent it over?

Simply put, the Chinese are toying with us. Their ‘free trade’ is like the East German’s ‘free elections’ pre-1992. When the free trade begins to favor anyone other than the Chinese, it suddenly not only stops being ‘free’, the ‘trade’ stops, too.

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Imagine that you are a computer hacker. Now, imagine that you hacked into the credit card companies and made them receive less than their due from your credit card. Imagine the prison sentence you would receive when discovered and proven in a court of law.

The credit card companies (not all, but several of the larger ones) have entered into a consent decree with the Securities and Exchange Commissioin (SEC) agreeing that they had charged customers for ‘protections’ that they never delivered, ‘protections’ that the consumers never signed up for. In other words, they stole money. The only difference is, they don’t have the guts to put a gun into their hand and yell, ‘This is a stick-up!’. No, they ‘hack’ into their own computers and steal from unsuspecting customers. But make no mistake: they are criminals.

But even though someone, somewhere told someone, somewhere in their building to press ‘send’, I doubt very seriously if anyone, anywhere will go to prison, any time soon. Damn it.

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I have been beating the drum that by increasing the minimum wage from $9.04 to $15 will see most of that increase taken up in additional federal taxes.

I forgot that there is the federal tax credit for working poor–“Earned Income Tax Credit”. This is the credit–money you get if you are working poor–that may evaporate if the minimum wage is increased substantially.

I am not sure if the tax credit disappears, but I will be researching it. I’ll report back.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.